Friday, December 16, 2011

Of Theoretical Physics

I have no desire to pretend I understand many of the theories I read upon in physics. In college, physics was the only science class I opted out. The pulley problems, the projectile calculations... I never took a strong interest.

Which is why when I became suddenly interested after so many years, I was in for a shock myself. My interest only lies on the theoretical side of physics (I will leave all the calculations to our living geniuses.) I love reading about the warping of spacetime, the birth of the universe, multiple universes, dark matter, time travel, quantum mechanics, etc. When I was younger, I used to roll my eyes on this. Geeeeeeeekkk~! Nowadays, I find it very inspiring to be able to look up the sky at night and ponder upon the cosmic oddities. 13 billion years in the making, and here I am, marveling at the very low yet very real probability of me being here.

Two advantages also sprang from this interest:

(1) My love of history dramatically increases, as history of mankind is so short relative to the history of the universe. Recorded history is only about 5000 years! This makes remembering all the historical events so much easier. Memorizing historical facts is not of much use in and of itself, but the more you know, the more you can relate things, and that's where the fun truly begins, and the reason why I love history so much.

(2) I am sure that one day I will work on stories about spacetime — because everything is tied into everything else.